A fun way to ease kids back into school mode is to present them with apps that make learning fun. Here are two new science apps that introduce ecology concepts in an engaging and playful manner.

'Ansel and Clair: Little Green Island HD'

Cognitive Kid, best for ages 6-12, $1.99, iPad (there is a separate version for iPhone and iPod Touch)

Rating: 4 stars (out of 4)

This marvelous ecology app puts children in charge of designing and maintaining their own island. Surrounding the island are two other island communities that create pollution affecting the whole area. Through 18 levels of challenges, kids learn about how the actions they take can combat or mitigate environmental challenges. By playing this simulation, kids will learn about the impact of pesticides, forest fires, oil spills, methane, acid rain and more.

In each level, Little Green Island presents an environmental challenge that kids can fix. For example, when chemical pesticides used by a neighboring farm create runoff into community water, players can introduce good bugs to eat the bad ones and thus lower the need to rely on pesticides. Kids will discover that using solar panels and windmills is a way to reduce one's carbon footprint. When an oil tanker tips over and creates an oil spill, kids can suck the oil up by purchasing an oil skimmer. They will also clean the oil off of the feathers of birds that encounter the oil.

This app's robust ecology curriculum is carefully placed inside leveled challenges where the player is always in control. As kids work to turn their brown island into a green utopia they earn greenbucks, the currency of this game. The greenbucks are used in the store, where kids can learn about and purchase over 50 types of trees, landscaping accents (ponds, flowers and such) and environmental savers needed to solve the myriad problems that arise.

Ansel and Clair: Little Green Island HD is a masterful science app that helps kids understand environmental issues by introducing them in a game format. It empowers kids to make a difference by letting them fix the eco-problems within this game. Rarely do apps present this kind of depth in such an engaging manner. Little Green Island's use of a simulation format is brilliant, as are its top-notch graphics. Many concepts are introduced in fun, rapping songs, and the presence of alien Ansel as a mentor, adds charm. Plus, the app offers additional information in text format that is read aloud. This is one of the best science apps in iTunes.

National Geographic's "Marine Missions" sends kids on eco-missions with Jacques the hermit crab to help clean up the world's oceans.(Photo: National Geographic)

This ecology app for young kids puts them in charge of cleaning up the world's oceans. Players join hermit crab Jacques on missions to polluted spots in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans. While there, kids tap on trash floating in the water to clean it up. They can swipe at floating oil spills to make them disappear. The trash collected is sent to a recycling center. In addition to cleaning up the oceans, kids learn about whirlpools, blowholes and tidal bores — all settings for three arcade games.

After finishing a round of six ocean missions, kids earn a fish part — such as a fin from a sailfish or glowing spots from a bioluminescent creature. They can use these earned parts to create their own unique fish in the Creature Builder section. Starting with a fish body, kids add eyes, mouths, fins and such. They get to choose colors and patterns for their sea creature and can take a photo of it to share. If kids move a magnifying glass over their creature's parts, they will trigger spoken explanations of where the part originated or interesting facts about the fish body. One such fact is that seahorses curl their tails around coral or plants, so that they don't float away while resting.

While not as deep in educational content as Ansel and Clair: Little Green Island HD, Marine Missions is meant to whet kids' interest in water conservation and introduce them to some of the animals found in the oceans. In the clean-up missions, as kids clear away the floating debris, fish and ocean mammals start to appear. Their presence actually helps kids to use visual discrimination skills to figure out if the object floating is the head of an octopus or a discarded bottle.

The three arcade games are fun, but they contain only a smidgeon of learning. While they will introduce kids to occurrences such as whirlpools and blowholes, the activities themselves aren't educational. For example, at a whirlpool, kids simply tap items before they get sucked in. Likewise, the activity about riding a tidal bore is little more than avoiding rocks and birds floating in the oceans. However, parents can extend this learning by using the "For Families" section, which is filled with information about these occurrences.

Marine Missions is a charming way to introduce kids to the ocean and some of the ecological challenges that are happening there. Splashing kids with ecology games helps them start to understand that the oceans are something we need to protect.